A Day At The Races With Reel Big Fish

Interview by Phil Rainone with help from Tim Norek, Frank Norek, & Stephen Rainone

Vans Warped Tour, Monmouth Park Race Track, Ocean Port, NJ - July 18, 2010

Reel Big Fish were once again on the main stage at the 15th Annual Warped Tour. The first time they played the Tour was in 1997, when The Warped Tour was still hitting Asbury Park, and it was a clusterfuck trying to see just about any band, or do an interview, which was next to impossible. This year (the second at Monmouth Park), there was a ton of room for all the six stages, skate board ramps, merch tents, food, beer garden, and especially the kids. Unfortunately due to the luck of the draw, Reel Big Fish got an early slot, and we heard the last few songs of their set as our crew was walking in from the parking lot.

As for the area that they chose for interviews, there was shade and a tent (temps were in the high 90’s – but what else is new - hey it‘s Jersey, it‘s summer, and the Warped Tour is in town. It doesn‘t get much better than this!) So being a ten year veteran of The Warped Tour, I’m loaded up in my cargo shorts with my well concealed gear including, pens, notes books, batteries, camera, tape recorder…FUCK! I left the blank cassette tapes on the kitchen table. RATS!

I didn’t realize I had left the tapes home until I started to interview Aaron and Scott from Reel Big Fish. So the following interview was conducted with pen, paper, and a lot of memory. Now, for just about any other band, the pen and paper would have worked rather well, but here we’re talking about a band that I had described in the past as “The Marx Brothers of Ska,” which means trying to keep up with their manic, comedic pace (a few years ago myself, my son Steve, and fellow Jersey Beaters Frank and his son Tim had interviewed the whole band, and it’s like your head literally spins trying to keeping up with the one-liners, full blown, outrageously funny stories, and all-around jocularly that encompasses a Reel Big Fish interview.)

So, here we are, myself, Aaron (guitar/vocals), and Scott (trumpet/vocals), under a big, shady tree, on a gorgeous, Sunday afternoon - without tape for my recorder. Needless to say, I wrote down as much as I could and jogged my memory to come up with this interview, so there aren’t any direct quotes, just my sloppy, short-hand, and heat-stroked memory to go by.

Q: So, Reel Big Fish are putting out a new “Best Of” CD in a few days?

Aaron: Yeah, besides a ton of our best songs re-recorded, there are also a bunch of our songs done ska-coustic that the whole band recorded.

Q: Why did you re-record most of your songs?

Aaron: Well, when we were on Jive Records, we didn’t like the way the label recorded them, we thought they sounded crappy, and we told our fans not to buy the Jive album. We feel that the new “Best Of” album is better, and more in line with how we originally wanted the songs to sound.

Scott: Our fans supported us and hardly any of the Jive CD’s was sold. The fans even went so far as to hide the CD’s in other bins in the record stores!

Q: You have some really dedicated fans! How has your playing changed over the years? Especially playing on The Warped Tour, since you only get thirty minutes to play and your usual set is close to two hours?

Scott: As far as the live shows we’re a lot tighter, but we keep the humor and the shtick fresh, but to a minimum.

Aaron: In the studio we know more about the recording process and how we want our music to sound. We still like to jam and get silly, like on stage, but the whole process of recording is easier. We still have small periods like “What are we going to do now,” but they’re few and far between as the time goes by.

Q: This is the first time you’re played here at Monmouth Park Race Track, have you been over to the track next door to make any bets on the ponies?

Scott: This is a horse race track? I thought it was a like an Indy car race track?

Aaron: Race track? What race track? I thought we were on a farm with a lot of horses?

And they’re off to the races (bad pun), as they say. Scott and Aaron are the type that, if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile! They just kept coming up with the most outrageous one-liners for the next five minutes. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t write, or think for that matter. These guys are just fun, funny, and funnier! Like I said, The Marx Brothers of Ska!!- But, I did manage to “Stump the Band,” as you will see.

Tim and The Boss


As in the past we (the Jersey Beat crew mentioned above) have interviewed Reel Big Fish just about every time they’ve played in New Jersey (heck, last time they played at Starland in Sayreville, Frank and Tim - they live five minutes from the venue - invited them to stop over after the show for a dip in the pool and some bar-b-que.

Unfortunately, they declined, but the gist of my story is, you start to run out of questions after a while with most bands, but RBF are a universe onto themselves! If they don’t have an answer, which most likely they do, they go off on mind-blowing tangents (Steve once ask Scott an easy, straight forward question about the band, and by the time he came around to answer the question a few minutes later, he was talking about, “Kitten made of clay…” And for some reason, it made sense!)

So, I convened with our crew, before the show and we all decided that this would be an interesting question to present to the band. It even got a chuckle from The Boss.

Q: About a year ago, there was a movie made about Bob Dylan, and they used a few different people to play Dylan form his early days to being in his 60’s. At one point they used a woman to play Bob in his 20’s which worked out well. So, if they ever make a movie about Reel Big Fish (I hope they do), what woman would you want to portray you, as your younger self?

The look I got from Aaron and Scott was PRICELESS!! I finally came up with a question that they were pretty much baffled with for at least two minutes. Hey, that’s a LONG TIME for these guys. Their minds are usually way ahead of the question-you never know what to expect.

They stammered slightly, eyes looking up to heaven as if looking for divine intervention. Aaron, you can almost see the wheels turning inside his head, ran through a few females names like Kate Blanche, but not really coming to a conclusion, and then Scott says, “Hmmm… That’s a pickle of a question!

HA! So, here we are, beautiful day, barely a cloud in the sky, standing under a big-old shade tree, and these guys are grasping at straws for an answer…I’m in heaven, man!! I finally stumped the band…at least for two minutes.

Then come the answers….

Aaron: Ashley and Kate Olsen, the Olsen Twins!!

Scott: (Right at the same time, as if his and Aaron’s minds had melded together), “Ashley and Jessica Simpson!”

Now, if you’re familiar with Reel Big Fish, and especially Aaron and Scott, you would know that they at some point may have been joined at the hip, because like the Marx Brothers their humor and timing are only over-shadowed by their mojo-manic mojo!!

So, my moment of triumph was short-lived- but I and the crew will not rest until we can totally annihilate the bands quick-witted whimsy. - But we’ll die trying (and laughing)!

Ok, bonus question: With 3-D movies becoming more and more popular (they just showed a 3-D baseball game with The Yankees, that I heard went over well), how do you feel about Reel Big Fish putting out a live show, or video in 3-D?

In my defense their answers were by now coming fast and furious, as if they were on a mission from God! So, I’ll leave you with as much as I could write down, or remember. I don’t actually remember who said what, so I’ll just say that Aaron & Scott took no prisoners as they converged on me.

A: That would be fun, we could do a lot of cool stuff, especially in a video (you could almost see the wheels turning in their heads)…

Then for about five minutes all sorts of ideas were free-flowing from the guys.- Animals, girls, trees, processed cheese, midgets, musical instruments, a baby‘s arm holding an apple… It’s like the Marx Brothers meets The Beatles, load up the VW minibus and head on over to Frank Zappa’s house to shoot pool. All sorts of stuff from weird to everyday items came spouting from Scott and Aaron as if a verbal dam had just burst forth, and like the outpour of a huge mass of water, the ideas sprung forth, and no amount of trying to put your finger in the dam, like the Little Dutch boy in the fable did, would spot the outpour of ideas!! Here, like on stage, was Reel Big Fish at their best!

Hey boys and girls, if you have any questions the next time we run into Reel Big Fish, you can send them to Jerseybeat.com. If we use your question, we’ll be sure to give you credit.

Casualties

The Jersey Shows stage was given a good area to perform in. They set it up right along the entrance as you walk in, so everyone got a good dose of some cool, up and coming Jersey bands. I miss the DIY bands that they would have set up in a oblong circle, and just basically set and play in front of their van, but the stages make the DIY bands easier to find.

The winners of JerseyShows.com’s War For The Warped Tour were The Call Out, A Clever Con, A Clear Blurr, A Need for a Reason, The Waffle Stompers, Negative Sky, Sirena, Betrayus, Eurphoria, Ptosis, and Cabin Theory, among others.

Tim and I had seen a Clear Blurr open for the Dolly Rots earlier this year, and as at Starland, their set for The Warped Tour was fun and exciting. They are an opening slot-worthy band. In fact, all the bands that we saw on the Jerseyshows.com stage were happy to be there, and it showed in the music and stage presence. A lot of the bands, after they performed hung around to support the next band, and the next. This is the real meaning of Jersey Strong.

Free Hugs were available (almost) everywhere

“And the papers want to know whose shirt you wear…” Space Oddity” by David Bowie

T-shirts were a little expensive. Ones with a Warped Tour logo went for 20 bucks, where a ticket for the show was $35, but, they didn’t charge for parking which was cool.

“Free hugs” was once again written in pen or painted on tummies, backs, and assorted body parts. Funny, I didn’t see anyone taking them up on it, although there was one woman wearing a Johnny Cash t-shirt (the really cool shirt with Johnny giving the finger), selling t-shirts saying,” Fuck Free Hugs”. Hey, it was only a matter of time until some entrepreneur got a brain storm to give it back to those emo kids - but can’t we all get along? Food and drinks were about average for The Warped Tour. $3 for pizza, $4 for water, $6 for burgers, and $7 for a beer (Tim and I had a liquid lunch). They also had the Adult Day Care set up. Jim and I were thinking about sneaking Tim in, who recently celebrated the fifth anniversary on his 21st birthday, but we toughed it out (I was in bed by 9pm that night).

With anthemic songs, gang vocals, and sing-along choruses, The Causalities (one of the original Warped Tour bands), got my blood boiling (didn’t take too much effort, the temps were in the 90’s). “Carry on The Flag,” War is Business,” and a rip-roaring cover of the Ramones’ “Blitzkrlieg Bop” during their 30 minute set, all helped to provoke circle pits, moshing, crowd surfing, and of course, The Casualities infamous “Wall of Death.” If fact, the kids were so into the band, that when the band called out for a reverse Wall of Death, they happily applied. One note: With all this going on no one was injured. There’s a code of honor, that my son Steve and Tim had told me about, where no one is out to hurt anyone (there are a few assholes every now and then), but it’s more of a “unity” thing where they’re all in it together, expressing their love of punk rock, and the band.

We’ve (Frank and Steve were missed - hopefully next year we‘ll all go), always had a good time at The Warped Tour, and look forward to it every year. There aren’t many traveling music fests, especially ones that feature punk rock, and all the types of music that help to connect it, and define it as a revolving, refreshing genre. I know that there’s an enormous effort between the bands, crew, sponsors, and Kevin Lyman, who helps to keeps this punk rock carnival on wheels rolling, but I hope it never, ever ends! It’s so much fun!!